talked about funding it in a number of ways in our report, including, I guess, taking down the tax credit for high-income families, which I know is now embroiled in another debate. But Bill is absolutely right. Whatever way you can help us, we need that help, and whatever money you give us will be put to extraordinarily productive use. Senator DODD. Thank you. I will just conclude by noting—and Senator Harkin has brought up a very good point on the salaries— that next to clergy, the lowest-paid employees in America are child care workers. There are things that we pay money for every day that we don't bat an eye over, whether it is car maintenance, changing tires, or basic care of lawn or other things, for which we'll pay two and three and four times what we'll pay to someone to watch our children. And when we talk about these costs-$2.5 billion, we all know, is a lot of money; $14 billion is a lot of money; $4 billion a year in compensatory education for kids who enter an education system totally unprepared for it is a lot of money; $715 million of lost wages for women each year because of problems just created around child care is a lot of money. What we often do as we discuss these proposals is we talk about how much the bill costs, but we don't talk about how much it costs us because we don't do anything. And it is costing this country a lot of money every day because we are not doing anything in this area. And at some point, we're going to have to start to recognize that. And I hear everyone say gosh, $2.5 billion is an awful lot of money, and yet, Governor Kean, everyone will agree with you and your quote of Mark Twain. Everyone will agree with that. And the fact is we are watching kids slip away. We have had 25 years of experience with Head Start, kids who were in that program and kids who were not, from the same neighborhoods. Juvenile justice system, teenage pregnancy, drop out of school-you name it. Kids who had the Head Start Program and kids who did not, the statistics glare at you after a generation of watching it now. And that program served kids for only a couple of hours a day, and only onefifth of the population. So it works. The question is do we have the guts to invest in it, or are we going to say gee, we can't quite do that this year and continue to pay out the kind of money we do. And I know standards are going to be a ticklish issue, but I'm delighted to hear we can continue to work at that. Obviously, we both have the same desires and goals. But we don't have a lot of time here in all of this. There is a moment for these sorts of things, and then other things will take over, my fear is, and we'll wait until the problem becomes a lot worse than it is today, and then we'll be paying a lot more money and have things that we frankly can't fix with dollars as things move along. I thank both of you for being here. I know you are very busy; you have got the other Governors in town. We immensely appreciate your participation. Governor KEAN. Thank you, Senator. Governor CLINTON. Thank you. Senator DODD. Our good friend, Tom Downey, has been very patient. We invite you to come forward, along with Carolyn Henric ques, a parent from New York. As Congressman Downey approaches the dais, I would notify my colleagues and those in the Committee room that Congressman Downey is one of the-in fact the principal sponsor of the welfare reform legislation in the House of Representatives, legislation that was moved through the Senate by Senator Moynihan of New York. Congressman Downey, we welcome you here this morning, and the full text of your remarks will be included in the record. Ms. Henricques, we welcome you as well this morning. STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS J. DOWNEY, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, STATE OF NEW YORK; CAROLYN HENRICQUES, PARENT, NEW YORK, NY; PHILIP W. JOHNSTON, SECRETARY, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF HUMAN SERVICES, COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND MYRA HOGAN, PARENT, GREENFIELD, MA Mr. DOWNEY. Senator Dodd, if I can begin and ask your Committee's indulgence if I leave right after I speak-it is not because I don't want to engage you in a dialogue on this issue; it is because the Ways and Means Committee is marking up the technical corrections, and the insurance matter is up first, and I suspect you'd be interested in my being there. I want to congratulate you on having this hearing and the work that you have done on this issue. You are a leader, and frankly, without your pressing this issue, I daresay that we would ignore this need, and that is frightening to me. Times have changed, clearly, for American children. That doesn't come as a great surprise to anybody who has not been in a time capsule. No longer does the stereotypical American family include a working father and a mom who stays home to care for the kids, but mom has gone to work, as Governor Kean so ably pointed out. Last year, 60 percent of all children under the age of 18 had a working mother; more than half of all children under age six had a mother in the labor force. And where do these children go when their mothers are working? Well, for a child under age five, parents have three basic options. Nearly 40 percent of these children are in some form of day care, spending the day in the home of someone else, cared for by a family care provider or, less often, a relative. Roughly 31 percent of these children are cared for in their own home by a relative. Organized child care facilities look after about 23 percent of all children. I might add parenthetically that this is the bete noire of the right, that somehow we are going to socialize all children, yet less than one-quarter of them are in any sort of organized day care. For older children, almost 14 million of them, the local school is the main day care center. However, a troubling 2.1 million of these kids regularly spend time after school with no adult supervision. These working families are paying billions, roughly $11 billion each year, for their child care. According to the Census Bureau, 5.3 million families paying cash for child care services averages $38 per week. Nearly 30 percent of these families paid $50 or more per week, and the burden on single-parent families is especially large. Ironically, families on welfare aspire to be just like these families. They would rather work than stay on welfare, but face serious obstacles. Many of these parents have not finished high school, need some remedial education, and have rusty, if any, job skills. If they leave AFDC to take a job, they put their children's health at risk, since many of the jobs these parents will find do not provide health insurance. If they are lucky enough to have health insurance or decide to gamble on their children's health, their next major worry is where to find safe, affordable and reliable child care for their children. If people earning three and four times the minimum wage can't afford child care, imagine what the poorest of our families face. H.R. 1720, the Family Welfare Reform Act, takes the first step toward offering these families some support. But it is only one step. H.R. 1720 will create a new work, education and training program for families on welfare that will give them the competitive edge they have lost or never had. If it works, in a few short years, thousands of welfare recipients will be ready to enter the labor force. They will be educated, trained and ready to begin working for a paycheck. Without some help with their child care expenses, however, all this effort will have been pointless. Why? The deck is stacked against the working single mother. Working full-time at the minimum wage or even slightly better, she cannot hope to earn her way out of poverty today. If her child care expenses deplete her earnings, the family's escape from poverty is even further away. The sad fact is many children need two earners to escape poverty. According to the Congressional Research Service, one-fourth of children in married couple families would be poor if the only income there was was from their fathers' earnings. Now, let's look more closely at the budget of this family of three leaving welfare to go work. If mom takes a job working full-time at the minimum wage, she will earn roughly $581 per month-nearly $7,000 per year. Assume she pays $25 per week for child care for each of her two children-not a princely sum, I might add; an amount well below the average reported to the Census Bureau— child care amounts to a hefty 34 percent of her earnings, leaving the family with $381 each month to pay the rent, buy clothes, and eat. If mom refuses to accept any Government help, she and her children will be living at half the poverty level-half. She won't be welfare-dependent, but she still will be very poor. The challenge of H.R. 1720 is to help this parent find work at a wage that can support her family. If she can't earn well above the minimum wage, she will need support-some combination of cash supplements, day care subsidies, and health insurance. All three of these items are provided with varying degrees of emphasis in the House and the Senate welfare reform bills. The challenge in the Conference on these bills will be to retain the best of both. But whatever we do in welfare reform probably won't be enough. The child care subsidies are likely to be time-limited, and the limit won't be purely a function of the family's earnings. When the child care subsidies in H.R. 1720 run out, the need will be retained as it exists now for working families who are poor, but not poor enough to qualify for welfare benefits. Only 11 percent of America's employers provide some help to workers who need child care. The Federal Government has become an important source of child care subsidies. Annually, the dependent care credit subsidizes over $3 billion in taxpayers' child care expenses. For poor families, the AFDC program and the Social Services Block Grant are another source. Head Start, the Community Services Block Grant, JTPA, and Federal nutrition programs also provide some help. Now, the demand for these programs goes on and on and on. And I would just tell you, Senator, that we can't afford, as you pointed out, not to have ABC and not to have it fully funded. And I would urge you, as the original sponsor in the Senate, as I will work in the House as one of its prime sponsors, that when we are finished with welfare, this is going to be one of our priorities because we cannot, as you have suggested, afford not to do it. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Congressman Downey follows:] June 28, 1988 Testimony of The Honorable Thomas J. Downey (D., N.Y.), Acting Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation, Committee on Ways and Means the Senate Subcommittee on Children, on the Child Care Needs of Low-Income Families The times have changed for American children. No longer does the stereotypical American family include a working father and a mom who stays home to care for the kids. Mom has gone to work. Last year, 60 percent of all children under the age of 18 had a working mother. More than half of all children under age 6 had a mother in the labor force. Where do these children go when their mothers are working? For children under age 5, parents have three basic options. Nearly 40 percent of these children are in some form of family day care, spending the day in the home of someone else, cared for by a family day care provider or, less often, a relative. Roughly 31 percent of these children are cared for in their own home, by a relative. Organized child care facilities look after about 23 percent. almost 14 million of them the local school is the main day care center. However, a troubling 2.1 million of these kids regularly spend time after school with no adult supervision. For older children - - - These working families are paying billions roughly $11 billion each year for their child care. According to the Census Bureau, the 5.3 million families paying cash for child care services averaged $38 per week per child. Nearly 30 percent of these families paid $50 or more per week. The burden on single-parent families is especially large. Ironically, families on welfare aspire to be just like these families. They would rather work than stay on welfare but face serious obstacles. Many of these parents have not finished high school, need some remedial education, and have rusty if any job skills. - If they leave AFDC to take a job, they put their children's health at risk, since many of the jobs these parents will find do not provide health insurance. If they are lucky enough to have health insurance, or decide to gamble on their children's health, their next major worry is where to find safe, affordable and reliable child care for their children. If people earning three |
